> Berkeley is becoming a green ghetto for rich ...
So ... you're new here, right? I've lived in Berkeley over most of the last 30 years and it's never been other than this. My guess is that it's been like this since it was founded.
> one simple solution, tax the rich and send some of the money
> down off the Berkeley and Oakland Hills to pay for schools
> and health and jobs
I don't get the sense that Berkeley's specific problem is income-based taxes. Berkeley is in the same position as a lot of other places today: they increased their spending during good times and didn't sock any away for the (inevitable) downturn. When the damn broke (i.e., when all categories of tax revenue went down), they were left with budget items that are contractual (city employee benefits, mostly) and those that, well, aren't. So you can guess what gets cut. They are really suffering because of the lack of a national-level policy to get out of a broad-based "recession" (yes I know that technically we aren't in one; but I'm still going to use that word). Fix the economy and Berkeley would (mostly) fix itself.
Municipalities in California get a very small piece of sales taxes (1% of the 8.75%), and a big majority of property taxes (76%?), plus a few odds and ends like business licenses, hotel taxes, parking meters ... all stuff that goes way down in recessions. You might have heard that property tax revenue in California is, um, down.
I'm not so sure your "simple" solution is very simple.
/jordan